Historian Accused Of “Religious Hatred”

23 February 201814 December 2020 / editors (JC)

YURY BRODSKY sees the far northern Solovki Archipelago as a kaleidoscopic microcosm of Russia – its history, culture, nature, and spirit all brought together in one remote and windswept corner of a vast country. “The most varied people come here and they all need Solovki,” says Brodsky. “It can change your world view. I’m trying to say that Solovki is a reflection of our entire world, of our entire history.”

Recently, his latest book about Solovki was reviewed on an Orthodox website. While the reviewer notes the author’s “feeling of love for Solovki”, he charges that it also demonstrates “a dislike, a surprising dislike, of the centuries-long history of the Solovetsky Monastery and Orthodox Russia.” Solovki’s transformation, of which Brodsky today warns, began in 2012. After a visit by Kirill, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, the head of the monastery Archimandrite Porfiry was appointed director of the State Solovki Museum and Reserve. (Porfiry’s birth name is Vladimir Shutov.) …

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Court upholds Bochkaryova’s right to apartment

20 February 20184 March 2018 / editors (JC)

On Monday, 19th February, the Primorsky (Maritime) district court in the Archangelsk Region ruled in favour of OLGA BOCHKARYOVA in her dispute with the director of the Solovki Museum, Archimandrite Porfiry (Vladimir Shutov).

Olga Bochkaryova (right) with her lawyer Marina Agaltsova outside the courthouse

This confirms her right of ownership to the two-room apartment where she and her daughter currently live: Bochkaryova does not own or have any other place to live.

In a commentary on the result, defense attorney Marina Agaltsova noted that the statute of limitation for any challenge to the contract transferring the apartment to Bochkaryova had already expired. A counter-claim advanced by Bochkaryova and her lawyer concerned State registration of the contract documenting the transfer of the property.

That application was greatly helped, commented Agaltsova, by the prosecutor who supported Bochkaryova’s argument. The prosecutor applied to the Register and received confirmation that no approval by the Ministry of Culture was required at the time the contract was concluded in 2011.

Since the late 1980s Bochkaryova has been a research associate at the Solovki Museum. In 2016, however, the Gulag section at the Museum was closed and she lost her job.

The coalition of human-rights activists
19 February 2018

Head of Museum’s disbanded Gulag section threatened with eviction

18 February 201822 September 2020 / editors (JC)

Attempts are being made to turn OLGA BOCHKARYOVA out of the accommodation transferred into her private ownership in 2011 by the Solovki Museum administration.

Olga Bochkaryova

On 1 January 2016, the Gulag section at the museum was disbanded and its head, Olga Bochkaryova, was dismissed from her post. Тhe present museum director, Vladimir V. Shutov, who is, simultaneously, Father Superior of the Solovetsky Monastery [as Archimandrite Porfiry], has now asked the courts to declare the 2011 agreement null and void. The case is being examined by the Maritime district court of the Arkhangelsk Region. A decision is expected on Monday, 19 February. Bochkaryova is being represented by defence attorney Marina Agaltsova.

Since 1988, Olga Bochkaryova has researched the history of the Solovki special purpose camp and run the museum’s section about the Gulag. She created a permanent exhibition about the camp (and prison) in one of the former camp barracks in Solovetsky town. Over the years she has provided advice and information to relatives of those imprisoned in the camp and helped them track down documents concerning their loved ones.

The coalition of human rights activists
16 February 2018

Olga BOCHKARYOVA died in Arkhangelsk on 30 July 2020. She was 63 years old.

“I’m trying to finish what’s most important” (Golgotha, part 6)

18 February 201817 March 2018 / editors (JC) / 1 Comment

Yury Dmitriev in his own words
(conclusion)

I first met students from the Moscow Film School, it seems, at Sandarmokh. They had come for the Day of Remembrance on 5 August. As it happened, one of the buses I’d laid on was empty and they travelled on it to the graveyard and back. They were greatly impressed and began asking me about local history.

Later they wrote me a letter: “Let us help you in some way.” I took up the offer and we went to Peter the Great’s arms factory. The next year they said: “We’d like to help again.” We worked at the Badger’s Hill graveyard. They wanted to help again, and that’s when we started going to Solovki.